This blog, as a Media Literacy project within Media and Society course, tries to show that advertising does not have to be always considered as either dumb, entertaining, commercial or controversial, but also that it can work for a positive thing – to change people’s minds on relevant issues they face daily.
The aim of this blog is to show that advertising becomes nowadays a natural part of our daily life and therefore cannot be omitted. Advertising slogans/mottos/images talk to us everywhere. Many companies, organizations and even private personalities use various media to deliver their ideas to the public and they are in the same time aware that advertising does this best. Advertising (can) successfuly delivers the message thru creative and powerful way, but it can also be weakish that people would neither see it, or get the message. But the key idea of the advertising is to create awareness and promote things, services or even personalities to the large amount of audience.
The pro-social advertising is a quite new and in some ways innovative concept of advertisement which focuses on relevant social, health and/or public issues which are considered as a threat to the audience. This kind of ad allows creative and powerful ideas to present these issues in more acceptable way. PSA (Public Service Advertisement/Pro-Social Advertising) is often used wisely and effectively to be as creative as possible, as effective as possible and to higher the awareness of the problematic issue in way that people relate to them and then get the idea of the social/helath/public issue.
Even though vast majority of media focus on commercials, PSA is getting its place on media market. It does not sell anything needless, it ‘sells’ awareness of real problematic issues taking place in the society which may easily cause that you would not have to be here tomorrow. Pro-social advertising gives you insight into the real issues which you should not omit. Thru reading this blog, you should get the notion of PSA – how it works, what its different kinds and usages are and what innovative approaches they use in order to increase awareness about particular issue.
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See below some starters for you to get the taste of PSA! (For more images and videos, visit my PSA Gallery)
Another article I recommend you to read is the one on NowPublic.com, written by Christopher Byrne called AIDS Awareness: Smokey and the Cell Video – the Personal Public Service Announcement. This article briefly explains what kind of new PSA will exist from now on. The article approaches you to the excerpt from Scott Shamp’s essay posted here. Scott Shamp is a Director of the University of Georgia New Media Institute and Executive Producer of the Project AIDS Personal PSA 2008. I highly recommend you to read the essay which is putting a light on a future ‘career’ of the PPSA (Personal PSA). Its goal is to show young people the everyday life of people infected by HIV and force them to get tested.
What is more than interesting on this campaign is that it chose different ‘channel’ to spread the PSA message. They did not use internet as the majority of PSA campaign uses, but they rather tried to do it in more personal way. They targeted their audience thru cell phones. Unbelievable? Impossible? Costly? These are thing which came on my mind when I read it. But the article changed my view. Thanks to generous sponsors who participate on the campaign, Verizon, AT&T, Nokia and others, it was possible to send messages including PSA video free of charge. This generosity of the partners should not be seen as a way how to promote their companies, but rather a way how to point out that the public service announcements should be free of charge.
As Shamp said: ‘Think of the power of these new PPSAs (Personal PSAs) to change people, to make communities stronger’ (‘AIDS Awareness’), PSA should focus more on the technological devices media obtained across the century and take advantages of them. Think of that! We have nowadays more than one screen at home – we have not only TV, but also internet or iPods (today also iPad, iPhone and also other similarly-advantaged cell phones) which can be used to spread the PSA much quickly and much directly. Then, also think about other advantages of these modern media devices – they are small, quick, colorful, easily transportable and, primarily, personal. Each of us has cell phone and majority of us have iPod therefore we all can be personally aimed by this PPSA campaign. And that is its biggest advantage – it can be targeted directly at the audience the organization is interested in. And in this we can see the future of PSA campaigns – they become more personalized, more directed and therefore, hopefully, more effective. AIDS PPSA campaign was launched in 2008 in USA, may be we all take advantage from such PPSA when it once comes on our phone.
Even thought all this blog is about the positive advertising – the PSA – it doesn’t mean that all these pro-social ads were successful in delivering the right message. I found an article on David Horowitz NewsRealBlog called Could Bristol Palin’s New PSA Unintentionally Encourage Abortion? and I want you to decide whether the pro-social ad was really done properly that it delivers the ‘right’ message. The article talks about how US culture, according to the author Jenn Q. Public, is permeated by negative approach towards having children in early age. The author quotes Barac Obama saying he ‘wouldn’t want them (his daughters) to be punished by a baby’. (Public) This quote the author decodes as Obama’s saying that children damage your life. Then author uses quotation of Rebeca Walker who was describing what her mother’s thoughts were: ‘I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she (Walker’s mother) wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other writers……My mother had me – a ‘delightful distraction’, but a calamity nevertheless.’ (Public) Both quotes should support the notion that children are kind of trouble to our young teen’s lives.
After this introduction, the author is getting to her point and she presents new PSA campaign made by Candies foundation staring Bristol Palin (also teen mother). The PSA video is, at least for me and for the author, a bit ambiguous. On one side, it should warn teen girls that they should calm down before they do anything they could later regret. But on the other hand, the way how it is presented, according to me, is putting negative connotations on motherhood. And the author thinks the same saying ‘I wonder if this Candies Foundation ad goes too far in demonizing motherhood’. (Public) Jenn Q. Public, then, thinks whether this PSA really discourage teen’s behavior leading to pregnancy and therefore, whether the teens should see the abortion rather as a unavoidable conclusion than as their free choice. The author concludes her article putting a positive connotation on having a baby in teen age as having a new life challenge to handle which is not impossible. I personally agree with Public that this PSA did not clearly present the idea and therefore, for me, it sends an ambiguous meaning. And if we think about the impact on young teen girls who have not already sorted out their own worldview, I would not say that they would choose the option to ‘have a baby’.
Watch the video below to get the impression and then write down a comment what do you think about it. Do you think it carries a clear one way message?
Other worth noting event I would like to draw attention to is Linka Bezpečí project called Richard má problem (Richard has a problem). Linka Bezpečí is a Czech non-profit organization whose mission is to help both children and teens with their daily problems considering school , bullying, family troubles and other complicated situations which they could otherwise solve in an adequate way (by self-abuse, escapes, suicides and many others). This organization is working since 1994 and had adopted hotline telephone service from UK ChildLine and started a non-stop available service. This service enables any children to call and share his/her troubles and get an advice from the assistants on the other side of the cable. During the fall of last year, Linka Bezpečí launched a new internet campaign called Richard má problem which is an interactive website offering help to both children and parents. Its visuals are done to fit perfectly the style parents and children are familiar to. The part dedicated to children offers various real stories of children having problems with bullying, conflicts in family, divorce of their parents and so forth. Also including the promo video which is running on the internet (see below its excerpt). The part dedicated to parents is merely different. It shares common problems their children can face and how they can help them to go thru these problems. The guider thru the whole webpage is Richard Krajčo, well-known Czech front man of Kryštof band. The little figure he represents is animated and changes emotions and mimics according to the problem he faces in the clip. The promo video you can see below is done as a set of songs by Kryštof band and visuals showing Richard having various problems. And in the end of each part there is visible the number where children can call in case of necessity. This internet PSA campaign won an award in the Žihadlo 2009 competition in the category of public service announcements.
For non-Czech speakers: Here I add some images from the website to show you the visual part of the campaign:
Here you can find various PSA campaigns which I found appealing and most of them even unforgottable… Even though some of them are in Czech, I think you get the messages it sends anyway.
And, please, feel free to share your comments and recomendations for other images, videos or/and sites.
(All images were taken from Google images, all videos from Youtube)
I would like to recommend you watching this very appealing videos made for the Amnesty International campaign in order to gain new people involved in the movement for human rights. These two campaigns (Signature and Ink) were aired in the year 2008 and even today are unforgottable for me. Even if it may be disturbing for you, or unpleasant to watch it, please, watch it till the end. Then you certainly get the message and its emotional appeal will draw in your memory an adhesive memento.
This website has not be ignored because its purpose is more than praiseful. ACT is a non-profit Swiss organization which gathers the greatest gallery of world PSA. ‘ACT – Advertising Community Together’ is aimed on environmental changes, sustainability and social responsibility. ACT arches over world advertising professionals who express their talent on very positive and useful ads – PSA. Advertising Community Together also brings together various companies and key industry players who are keen to participate on the social responsibility lifestyle and therefore encourage other companies to do so as well and spread these good practices in order to get more people and organizations to behave responsibly. Of course, the non-profit organization has to pay these ads and ad professionals. Industries help with this and are financing whole 100% of their actions. They believe that thru effective and inspiring public service announcements people understand the urgency and necessity of behaving responsibly towards the environment in order to improve most disturbing issues in the world.
Osocio, formerly known as Houtlust Blog, focuses exclusively on social advertising campaign and non-profit campaigns which both strive to make people aware of world issues in order to make the world better. The blog was founded in 2005 by Marc van Gurp and it was written only in Dutch. But thanks to many visits and interest of people from outside Netherland, the English version was inevitable. Not long after, Houtlust Blog became a main platform for non-profit pro-social advertisers with many references. Osocio declares itself to be the central hub for advertisers, activist, environmentalists, Samaritans and many others who really care about what’s happening on planet considering human’s impact. (Osocio) I have to strongly agree with Osocio claim about pro-social advertising that it ‘has uncanny power to make us stop, think and then take action to help person, group of people ….’. (Osocio) This is very true and Osocio blog introduces more details about each campaign posted there so that you get the notion about the whole campaign, what was the first reason to create that and also it allows you to be able to think more deeply about any other pro-social campaign you will see, because you will know what is happening in the backstage.
Here is a little taste of one of the recent projects posted on Osocio. Let’s try to see the world as homeless people see it – click on the link below:
It is easy to enter the street. But hard to escape it.
Social Advertising blog is a non-profit journal which claims to be posting ads which promote social responsibility and encourage others to behave so. On this page you find vast amount of pro-social advertising campaigns focusing on many issues ranked in 14categories such as Alcoholism, Disability, Education, HIV, Smoking, and many others. You can ‘enjoy’ both images and videos following an introductory text which describes the issue and also the campaign in particular country. Other benefit of visiting this page is the list of other blogs focusing on pro-social advertising which you can visit then to find more about PSA and its campaigns. If we are an international university gathering international students, I am sure that you will certainly find at least one pro-social ad from your country, in your language, on this blog. See below a little taste of ads posted on Social Advertising blog:
Do you know how much advertising are you exposed to? According to Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication, everyone is exposed to at least 500ads daily. (Harris) That is quite a big number, isn’t it? But, honestly, how many of them do you recall the day after? Three, one, none? If none, then money and effort spent on these ads were useless. But, what if some advertising has so called ‘stopping power’ which makes you stop, think and then take the idea and bear it in mind? This one you would certainly remember. And such stopping power has PSA in majority, if not in all, cases.
Common purpose of advertising is to persuade audience. It should persuade audience in many ways with different effects. Main effects of advertising are behavioral (buy the product), attitudinal (like the product) and/or cognitive (recognize and/or learn about the product). (Harris) Each advertisement should create at least one of these effects otherwise it can be considered ineffective. In case of Public Service Announcement, the advertisements work primarily with the cognitive effect which let people think about the problem, recognize it and learn from it. Public Service Announcement, or in other words pro-social advertising, according to Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, is ‘a 30 to 60 second video and its goal is to persuade an audience to take a specific action or adopt a particular viewpoint on a cause or social issue’. (‘Characteristics…’) Therefore it focuses mainly on daily issues which are considered as a threat to the society and which society does not take as seriously as it should. (Many examples of PSA campaigns you may see in my additional articles and recommended blogs where you alone can also judge the way of persuasion and overall effectiveness of this kind of advertising.) What else have to be mentioned is that majority of PSAs are made by non-profit, non-governmental organizations and are done to serve a purpose – to raise awareness, not to raise sales. In my personal view, the advertisement focusing on daily issues which are considered as a threat to the society are by itself powerful. And the execution in majority of cases is even more powerful and effective if gets to the viewers. Both those factors of success of this campaigns are also supported by very straight forward and original way of execution and therefore also very powerful considering sent the message. For instance, look at this quite new example of PSA focusing on protection against AIDS.
This video called Zizzi Grafitti was made by Association Française de Lutte Contre le VIH/sida et les Hépatites Virales (French association for AIDS and hépatites virus protection). (‘Zizi Graffiti’) Its execution is apparently talking to young generation and their style of life and it is bearing crystal clear message thru, on one hand, very funny and sad way, but also on the second hand, it provides acknowledgement about the issue.(If you are interested more in this area of PSA and you are advanced in French, you may visit AIDES web site to read and see their other campaigns = http://www.aides.org/campagnes ) Such formats of advertisement are usually used for PSA campaigns and as you can see, they are very powerful, effective and you really will not forget them the day after. And other, let’s say, add value to PSA is that its ads are very quickly spread via various media – like Facebook, e-mail, or blogs – and therefore it targest many people for which such advertisement was done. And if it works this way, we may say that PSA has a ‘stopping power’.
Unfortunately, PSA was historically not often visible in media, because as Harris in his A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication sais, the time freed for these ads was always late night, or soon morning when other advertising agencies do not want advertise, because nobody is watching/hearing it. (Harris) But, fortunately, these times are over and we may watch/listen to at least some PSA. One of them is also Nemyslíš, zaplatíš! pro-safe driving campaign. (For more information and videos, check my additional posts.) This campaign is reminding people about the usual issues which lead to tragic consequences and is broadcasted not only in TV and radio, but also on Youtube, Facebook and various blogs focusing on this field. And by using various media, the message is easily spread among the target audience. So, even though PSA campaigns are not often visible in mainstream media, their power and effectiveness is even bigger. Do you now, after reading this post, remember the PSA AIDS campaign video I’ve talked about? Do you know what to do to protect yourself against AIDS? If you do, then you will agree with me that PSAs have stopping power and work very effectively. And you are the real verification of it.
Pro-Social Advertising 
